In this April 11, 2011 file photo, director James Cameron speaks at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. Cameron said Thursday, March 8, 2012, he plans to take a submersible craft down 7 miles to the world's deepest point in the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean 200 miles southwest of Guam.

Built by Australians, the Deepsea Challenge submarine, fits just one person: James Cameron. "Cameron’s team describes it [the vehicle] as sharing qualities of both a race car and a torpedo," according to National Geographic.

If successful, his group will be the second to make it to the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The first group completed their trip in 1960. But the explorers, U.S. Navy lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard, were unable to take pictures because their landing stirred up too much sediment for them to see clearly.

What does it take to be a deep sea explorer?

Piccard's son, Bertrand Piccard, said his father, who died in 2008, passed on to him "a sense of curiosity, a desire to mistrust dogmas and common assumptions, a belief in free will, and confidence in the face of the unknown."